Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday with explosions heard soon after in the capital and other parts of the country.
Weeks of intense diplomacy to avert war and the imposition of Western sanctions on Russia failed to deter Putin, who had massed between 150,000 and 200,000 troops along the borders of Ukraine.
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“I have made the decision of a military operation,” Putin said in a surprise television announcement shortly before 6:00am (0300 GMT) in Moscow.
He also called on Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms, and justified the invasion by claiming a “genocide” in Ukraine’s east.
The Kremlin had earlier said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv.
An AFP reporter in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, heard explosions within about 30 minutes of Putin’s announcement. Explosions were also heard in the eastern city of Mariupol and the Black Sea port of Odessa, according to AFP reporters.
US President Biden immediately warned of “consequences” for Russia and said the world would “hold Russia accountable” for its actions.
He said Russia’s move would cause “catastrophic loss of life and human suffering”, while NATO’s chief condemned Russia’s “reckless and unprovoked attack’ on Ukraine.
At the United Nations, Ukraine called on the world body “to do everything possible to stop the war”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had made an emotional appeal late on Wednesday night to Russians not to support a “major war in Europe”.
Speaking Russian, Zelensky said that the people of Russia were being lied to about Ukraine.
Zelensky said he had tried to call Putin but there was “no answer, only silence”, adding that Moscow now had around 200,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s borders.
NATO Condemns Attack.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has condemned Russia’s “reckless and unprovoked attack” on Ukraine.
He said NATO allies will meet to address Russia’s latest move, adding: “We stand with the people of Ukraine at this terrible time.”
“NATO will do all it takes to protect and defend allies,” he added.
Ruthless Russia
Putin had for weeks defied a barrage of international criticism over the crisis, with some Western leaders saying he was no longer rational.
His announcement of the military operation came ahead of a last-ditch summit involving European Union leaders in Brussels planned for Thursday.
The 27-nation bloc had also imposed sanctions on Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu and high-ranking figures including the commanders of Russia’s army, navy and air force, another part of the wave of Western punishment after Putin sought to rewrite Ukraine’s borders.
The United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday for its second emergency session in three days over the crisis, with a personal plea there by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Putin going unheeded.
Western capitals said Russia had amassed 150,000 troops in combat formations on Ukraine’s borders with Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied Crimea and on warships in the Black Sea.
Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel, and could call up to 250,000 reservists.
Moscow’s total forces are much larger — around a million active-duty personnel — and have been modernised and re-armed in recent years.
Cost of War
Ukraine has received advanced anti-tank weapons and some drones from NATO members. More have been promised as the allies try to deter a Russian attack or at least make it costly.
Shelling had intensified in recent days between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists — a Ukrainian soldier was killed on Wednesday, the sixth in four days — and civilians living near the front were fearful.
Dmitry Maksimenko, a 27-year-old coal miner from government-held Krasnogorivka, told AFP that he was shocked when his wife came to tell him that Putin had recognised the two Russian-backed separatist enclaves.
“She said: ‘Have you heard the news?’. How could I have known? There’s no electricity, never mind internet. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but to be honest, I’m afraid,” he said.
In a Russian village around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border, AFP reporters saw military equipment including rocket launchers, howitzers and fuel tanks mounted on trains stretching for hundreds of metres.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the NATO alliance and that US troops pull out from Eastern Europe.
Speaking to journalists, Putin on Tuesday set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine should drop its NATO ambition and become neutral.
